Atlanta Man Shatters Coast-to-Coast Driving Record, Averaging 98MPH 666
New submitter The Grim Reefer sends this quote from CNN:
"[Ed] Bolian set out on a serious mission to beat the record for driving from New York to Los Angeles. The mark? Alex Roy and David Maher's cross-country record of 31 hours and 4 minutes, which they set in a modified BMW M5 in 2006. ... He went into preparation mode about 18 months ago and chose a Mercedes CL55 AMG with 115,000 miles for the journey. The Benz's gas tank was only 23 gallons, so he added two 22-gallon tanks in the trunk, upping his range to about 800 miles. ... To foil the police, he installed a switch to kill the rear lights and bought two laser jammers and three radar detectors. He commissioned a radar jammer, but it wasn't finished in time for the trek. There was also a police scanner, two GPS units and various chargers for smartphones and tablets -- not to mention snacks, iced coffee and a bedpan. ... The total time: 28 hours, 50 minutes and about 30 seconds. ... When they were moving, which, impressively, was all but 46 minutes of the trip, they were averaging around 100 mph. Their total average was 98 mph, and their top speed was 158 mph, according to an onboard tracking device."
Whoosh! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm pretty sure this guy passes me every day on the way to the office.
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I'm pretty sure this guy passes me every day on the way to the office.
off the road, grandpa!
Re:Whoosh! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Whoosh! (Score:5, Funny)
The best part of the first Cannonball Run was the team that used an ambulance for the race (wasn't that Burt Reynold's character?). Csaba Csere [wikipedia.org] actually did this in the real Cannonball Run! He said it worked perfectly - they had no trouble from the law, and would have won except the ambulance blew it's transmission as they approached the west coast. (Hey guys, next time don't stop in San Francisco to blow a tranny.)
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It wasn't Csaba. It was Brock Yates. I know him and Jr. personally, and the "patient" was Brock's wife Pamela.
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Re: Whoosh! (Score:5, Informative)
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Insurance (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if his insurance company will be hiking his premiums? Sounds like a risk-taker...
Re:Insurance (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Insurance (Score:5, Informative)
No, they don't. I have a heavily modified vehicle. Much more done to it that what he did. I've axles from 2 different models of cars, different break booster, different engine and transmission, Disc break conversions, Modified computer, Modified transmission lines and coolers, exhaust and complete custom suspension... They inspected it and raised my rates on it slightly but other than that it's still covered.
Re:Insurance (Score:5, Informative)
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Which part of a car is the "break"?
My experience says that if it's an Jaguar, pretty much all of it.
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No they do not. They raise your premiums. My S60R has a bigger turbo and downpipe, a second intercooler, and quite a few bigger pipes where it matters. Stuff had to go in the trunk, I had to limit my front wheels' travel... but now I get 460hps at the wheels with the AWD fuse pulled.
I have declared it all, and the premium rose quite a bit... but then, so did the coverage. The car is still street legal.
My last car was a heavily modified Toyota Supra. Its frame was ruined when a cop (on a cellphone, out o
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Bullshit, the car reeked of gasoline that means it was leaking. How is that mitigating risk?
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Speaking as a lawyer . . .
"in court" is the catch.
*which* court?
There isn't a court in the country with jurisdiction to prosecute "he sped somewhere in some jurisdiction." A court needs to convict for a specified violation within it's own jurisdiction. An acknowledgment that means a crime was committed *somewhere* that *might* have been in that jurisdiction isn't sufficient to convict.
hawk, esq.
When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Interesting)
Clear cut case of speeding and the guy even collected his own evidence.
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Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, highway speed limits, at least federal interstates, have speed limits for the purpose of generating revenue.
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, highway speed limits, at least federal interstates, have speed limits for the purpose of generating revenue.
Reckless driving is a criminal offense, not something you're fined for. Speeding fines are there to provide some disincentive to doing stupid things prior to going to jail for it.
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:4, Insightful)
Speeding fines are there to provide some disincentive to doing stupid things prior to going to jail for it.
Speeding fines are there to collect some money for municipalities.
Otherwise they would be uniformly and much more strictly enforced. Currently they are enforced in a haphazard manner, often collected at locations where speedlimit rapidly changes.
If speed limits were uniformly and strictly enforced (rather than an occasional tax on the driver), there would likely be enough outrage to repeal them.
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Informative)
Speeding fines are there to collect some money for municipalities. Otherwise they would be uniformly and much more strictly enforced.
Um... no. Speeding fines are NOT there to collect some money for municipalities, otherwise they would be uniformly and much more strictly enforced.
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Um... no. Speeding fines are NOT there to collect some money for municipalities, otherwise they would be uniformly and much more strictly enforced.
If speed limits were uniformly enforced either the limits would be eliminated within a week, or riot police would have to shoot most of the population within that time. The only reason the current limits are tolerated is the fact that everybody can easily get away with violating them.
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No, highway speed limits, at least federal interstates, have speed limits for the purpose of generating revenue.
Reckless driving is a criminal offense, not something you're fined for. Speeding fines are there to provide some disincentive to doing stupid things prior to going to jail for it.
And revenue. As minor speeding isn't really much danger at all, but a lucrative cash cow authorities have become accustomed to suckling the milky teats of.
You'll find speed cameras and cops hitting motorists hard in places where people are likely to speed, and there for generate maximum revenue. But conspicuously absent at notorious deadly accident blackspots where there isn't a high volume of traffic.
If the primary goal was to save lives by slowing people down. Using first principals, where would you
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Insightful)
What do federal interstates have to do with anything? The 55 mph limits were proposed by Nixon as a way to conserve gas during the first big oil crisis. The actual speed limits, enforcement, and ticket revenue are all handled at the state level- for interstates and every other road.
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't I have mod points? ACs can reply all they want, but no one ever cites those studies that show lower speed limits are safer... Because they don't exist.
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Informative)
no one ever cites those studies that show lower speed limits are safer... Because they don't exist.
Here's a study that shows lower speeds are safer. Among people who were wearing a seat belt, nobody driving 60 mph or less died. People driving over 60 mph died, because in an accident above 60 mph, the car rolls and the passenger compartment starts to fall apart. (Unfortunately the full paper is paywalled, but it had a nice chart of fatalities increasing with speed.) This happens to be a classic paper from 1967; there have been studies coming to the same conclusion ever since. You can look them up in the Engineering Index.
Driving fast is safe as long as you don't have an accident. When you do have an accident, the faster you're going, the more energy you have to dissipate, and the more likely the car is to crush in a rollover or tear apart and send you flying unprotected at 60 mph. It's pretty hard to hit the ground at 60 mph and survive. That's roughly equivalent to falling off a 15-story building.
http://papers.sae.org/670925/ [sae.org]
A Statistical Analysis of 28,000 Accident Cases with Emphasis on Occupant Restraint Value
Paper #: 670925
Published: 1967-02-01
DOI: 10.4271/670925
Citation:
Bohlin, N., "A Statistical Analysis of 28,000 Accident Cases with Emphasis on Occupant Restraint Value," SAE Technical Paper 670925, 1967, doi:10.4271/670925.
Author(s): N. I. Bohlin
Affiliated: Passenger Car Engineering Dept., AB Volvo
Abstract: The value of the three-point safety belt has been evaluated by a statistical analysis of more than 28,000 accident cases, which concerned mainly two cars only and in which 37,511 unbelted and belted front-seat occupants were involved. The safety harness concerned is the Volvo three-point combined lap and upper torso harness with a so-called slip-joint. The average injury-reducing effect of the harness proved to vary between 0 and 90%, depending on the speed at which the accident occurred or the type of injury. Unbelted occupants sustained fatal injuries throughout the whole speed scale, whereas none of the belted occupants was fatally injured at accident speeds below 60 mph. Slight injuries only, mostly single rib cracks, bruises, etc., caused by the safety belt were reported in some cases. The three-point belt proved to be fully effective against ejection out of the car. Almost all cars involved were equipped with safety belts, of which, however, only 26% on an average were used. The frequency of use increased with the age of the occupants.
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Um. A paper from 1967? Really?
A time when cars didn't have a steel cage around the passenger compartment, no airbags of any kind, no crumple zones...
Have you seen the youtube video of a 1959 Chevrolet crashing into a 2009 Chevrolet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMK1WZjP7g [youtube.com]
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Informative)
The crush space was the same in 1967 as it is today. I remember an article in Automotive News which reported on a lecture by a Mercedes-Benz engineer on the problem of designing a car that would let the occupants survive a front-end collision into a barrier.
The engineer described the physical constraints. They had to decelerate the car at a maximum number of Gs. They had 50 inches of crush space between the passenger compartment and the front end. In order to decelerate to a stop through that distance, you couldn't be driving any faster than about 50 mph. It didn't have anything to do with the mechanical capabilities of the car, that was the maximum theoretical speed you survive at. The crush space increased as the square of the initial velocity, so it wasn't feasible to increase the crush space in the hood. You can't make a practical car with 16 feet of crush space.
I used to work for the Society of Automotive Engineers, and I worked on the papers that they used to design seat belts and air bags. (That's why I know about Bohlin's paper.) The lap-and-shoulder seat belts (which Bohlin originally designed) were actually safer in a collision than the airbags. The airbags only make sense if people aren't wearing seat belts.
There's a big difference in safety between a 1959 Chevrolet and the cars that came later. Ralph Nader published Unsafe at Any Speed in 1965. The lawsuit Larsen vs. General Motors was decided in 1965, and made auto manufacturers responsible for designing safer cars. And Volvo, which Bohlin worked for, were always designed for safety. Bohlin's study is only one of the best studies, but it was followed by many, many studies that all showed that the faster you drive, the more likely you are to die in an accident.
It's just basic engineering physics. 60 mph is like falling off a 10- or 15-story building. The faster you go, the more kinetic energy you have, and if that car becomes unstable, as it will in an accident, that energy has to get dissipated somewhere. The higher the speed, the less likely the occupants are to survive.
Don't take my word for it. Look up the engineering literature.
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You don't want to pick this champion for that cause. You could probably show ranging it from 60-80 doesn't matter much.
This guy was AVERAGING 100mph and probably going 120mph in stretches with other cars. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he was only going 150mph on an isolated road (and even then, God help a poor guy turning onto the highway not realizing the car could possibly be going at that speed).
From 60mph to 80mph is only a 50% increase in energy. From 60mph to 120mph is quadruple the ener
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Informative)
The first study you cite isn't related to lower speeds but lower speed variances and, in the first page abstract, says, "...accident rates do not necessarily increase with an increase in average speed but do increase with an increase in speed variance."
The third study really speaks about speed limits on urban roads, where the majority of accidents occur, rather than interstates.
The Solomon Curve [wikipedia.org] speaks more directly to the real issue of speed and accidents and relates to speed differentials. Solomon's results have been duplicated many times and the issue is that there is a higher likelihood of being in an accident as an individual's speed varies from the average speed. Interestingly, going much slower than the average speed seems to indicate a higher likelihood of being involved in an accident.
I spend a lot of time driving across country and the worst places in my experience are the interstates in urban areas. Those areas tend to have artificially lower speed limits to deal with maximum traffic capacity for rush hour. When driving through these areas during non-rush hour times I would feel that I would be run over if I drove anywhere near the speed limit. The first study you cite specifically talks about finding the ideal speed limit related to the highway speed design point and that artificially setting the speed limit too low related to the design point increases the probability of accidents.
Simply having a lower speed limit does not, in itself, result in lower accident rates.
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Here's the first study.
Accident Analysis & Prevention
Volume 22, Issue 2, April 1990, Pages 137–149
The effects of the new 65 mile-per-hour speed limit on rural highway fatalities: A state-by-state analysis
This paper examines the effects of the new 65 mile-per-hour (mph) speed limit on U.S. rural highway fatality counts. Separate analyses are conducted for each of the 40 states that had adopted the new (higher) limit by mid-1988. Using monthly Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS) data from January
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ah, one of those capitalists that believes that if something is related to money, that must be the one and only thing reason involved.
Never been to the province of Ontario have you? 62mph limit, when the highway is rated for 80mph.
As good as it gets? (Score:3)
As part of your registration here in Oz
Re:As good as it gets? (Score:4, Insightful)
Speed limits have virtually nothing to do with the quality of the road surface. It's about hidden driveways, pedestrians, wildlife, oversized vehicles, bends, trees, sun glare, ect.
Given that the Op specified "federal interstates", I can state that at least in the USA the designed safe speed for a highway takes far more into account than just the 'quality of the road surface'. For example, above 55mph driveways are outright forbidden, and 65+ you have to have on/off entry merges that allow entering vehicles to speed up to the posted limit before merging and conversely slow before exiting. Pedestrians are typically forbidden from being on the road - if there's significant need for them to be able to cross, they'll put in a under/overpass for them to cross on. Even controlled intersections are forbidden - again, roads go over/under. When you hit 75 mph, 'oversize vehicles' are handled more by the road being at least 4 lanes - and while you don't really see it at those speeds, but the lanes themselves are wider, thus 'oversize' isn't quite so oversize anymore. I've seen plenty of oversize vehicles that fit comfortably between the lines on the highway.
I'm not a highway designer, but there are additional considerations like maximum curve, slope, and such, all of which becomes much gentler as design speed increases. Then you get some areas like Texas that imposes a different speed limit at night than they do during the day - when sight limit to avoid unexpected obstacles like wildlife is really the only limit to how fast you can go.
So while the authorities may be "unfairly" force drivers slow down in specific circumstances, it's certainly not because they are short of a dime. There will never be a zero road toll as long as there are humans, the question is, and always will be - what is an acceptable toll, where do we stop and say that's as good as it gets?
Come to the states. Unfairly lowered speed limits around specific towns with more than 80% of their police force dedicated to writing speeding tickets in a couple spots, 99% to those passing through, are known. It might be mostly a US phenonemon, but it's very well known here.
Re:As good as it gets? (Score:4, Interesting)
Pity, it works rather well here, I think the difference is that over here it's set up in such a way that a lower road toll equates to a profit for the state.
I'll point out that while there are unfairly lowered speed limits, as well as speed limits lowered not to meet safety standards but to make neighbors happy*, but for the most part if you follow NTSB recommendations you'll be very safe, and 'most' local traffic authorities are fixated on being safe. We've had some incidents where yellows have been shortened to generate more revenue from red light cameras, but for the most part judges have been very unsympathetic to red light cameras when this is discovered - and they're unsympathetic even when it's found that they didn't shorten them, but deliberately selected lights that weren't following NTSB standards for whatever reason.
There are constant improvements in the states safety wise, including demanding safer vehicles. As a result we've managed to get our annual fatalities down to just over 30k/year from a high of over 50k/year despite ever more vehicles on the road. One of the more interesting aspects is the psychology of driving that they consider today - most people drive at what they 'feel' is a safe speed, thus there's various psychological tricks you can use to make sure their 'feeling' matches up with reality. Remember, not an expert, just read some articles on it.
Additionally, remember that the USA is generally much more concerned with 'internal affairs' than other countries and we're a lot more fragmented legal wise. We're more like the EU than the UK between our 50 states. As a result we 'air our dirty laundry' a lot more.
I think that the difference in the end is more flavor than substantiative. Liability coverage is also mandatory here in the states, though the details vary.
*One interstate corridor was put in over protest, and part of the deal cut was lower speed limits in an effort to limit noise. Later studies have shown that not only do lower speeds not significantly limit noise, people aren't following them anyways.
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That's why you do more than glance before you make such a maneuver.
Uh huh. Just slow down, Flash, and everybody gets to live. Other drivers have got plenty to deal with already.
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Says all those people who like to speed. As soon as you or someone you love gets killed or injured by a speeder, your tune will change.
If I have loved-ones accidentally killed by a person who takes Zoloft, didn't get enough sleep, was stressed by divorce proceedings, was late for work, was perhaps going a little over the speed limit, and crossed the center-line... How should I change my tune then? Which thing(s) should I go into a moral panic or rage over? What new law (preferably named after my lost loved-one) should I demand in order to restrict peoples' behavior and liberties, "so something likes this never happens to anyone else?"
Maybe
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Because it's so much worse for the bodies inside a car getting hit by another traveling 105 MPH than 55.
No, it's that when the American driving at 55 puts down his cheeseburger, big gulp & cell phone and notices something he has more time to stop than the American does who is driving 105 while eating Doritos and changing tracks on his iPod.
Re:Also consider equilibrium. (Score:4, Interesting)
I learned this physics lesson quite well when I hyrdroplaned at 55 MPH in July 2013 and hit the leading edge of a guardrail rear first. Thankfully the impact pushed me INTO my seat, and I was alone in the car (an hour earlier I had my children with me). The sheer force of spinning and rapidly decelerating knocked me the fuck out. I remember a loud "metal grinding" sound that was my rear bumper folding up and demolishing 20 feet of guardrail, and I remember spinning. Then I woke up at the bottom of a ditch.
Ever since I have been more careful (not not a pussy) while driving in the rain. I measure my tires' tread depth on a regular basis. That is one experience I never want to repeat again. And that was at 55 MPH (in a 70 zone). If I were hit by an assclown going twice my speed even on dry pavement? That is four times the force. Four times the pain, four times the brain scrambling in a spin. I may write software for a living, but I respect physics.
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Insightful)
This. Not only that, this is a clear case where he SHOULD be, if not arrested, at least fined heavily. This is clear cut reckless driving; speed limits are posted to keep the public safe. Stunts like this should not be pulled at the potential expense of other drivers on the road. We're all beholden to the same laws, whether you're trying to break a record or not.
Unless he posts GPS data (maybe he did), how can he be arrested? Theoretically, he could have been traveling the speed limit through any given state that might want to arrest him.
Reminded me of posting speedometer on youtube (Score:3)
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Highway speed limits were introduced to save oil, not to keep people safe. Germany doesn't have speed limits on large stretches of its highways, and much higher speed limits where it does, and yet fewer people get killed per million vehicle miles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate [wikipedia.org]
What this guy did was clearly reckless, but that's because he was driving at different speeds from the rest of traffic, not because he was goi
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm conflicted about this. Yes, he broke the law, and as pointed out, even collected the evidence to be used against himself.
But "reckless" is a matter of opinion, the definition being "without thinking or caring about the consequences of an action", and it wasn't clear that this was the case. One could argue (and in his position, I would, in court) that the degree of preparation involved (only some of which, undoubtedly, we have heard here) is proof positive that the participants very much were thinking and caring about the consequences of their actions.
I recall an article back in the seventies, may have been in an auto or men's magazine (I remember the graphic was a pantera overtaking a sedan at an extremely high rate of speed) about the ethics of speeding. As I recall, the author exceeded the speed limit by large margins on a regular basis, but he had commensurate skills, a car equipped for the job, and a set of ironclad rules. I don't remember all of them, but one was: If anything you do makes another driver deviate in any fashion, by flinching, braking, swerving or anything other than jaw dropping as you go by, you have lost. Find another hobby. Another was: What you're doing is illegal. When you get pulled over, and it *will* happen, take it like a man. Don't whine, don't try to get out of it, be courteous and respectful. There were other rules that I don't recall. The gist was, if you have decided to speed, you have a duty to do so in a way that doesn't make you a menace or an asshole.
As for "speed limits are posted to keep the public safe", yeah, that's what they always say. And back when we had a 55 mile per hour national speed limit, they said it then too. Did the populace at large suddenly become better drivers when the double nickel was repealed? Speed limits tend to be arbitrary, and at best, "safety" is measured as some government-set lowest-common-demoninator. Drug laws exist to keep us safe too, and that's working out swell.
I have a Harley with a five speed transmission. I've heard of a six speed upgrade, but thought those were just for bragging rights, as nobody would ever really need a sixth gear. And then I visited Texas. Now I'm saving up for one.
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:4)
This. Not only that, this is a clear case where he SHOULD be, if not arrested, at least fined heavily. This is clear cut reckless driving; speed limits are posted to keep the public safe. Stunts like this should not be pulled at the potential expense of other drivers on the road. We're all beholden to the same laws, whether you're trying to break a record or not.
I don't buy into this philosophy of punishing people for "crimes" based on arbitrary risks of things that could, but did not occur — and they are most certainly arbitrary: Texting-while-driving is illegal, but adjusting-the-stereo-while-driving is not, nor are any of the following "risky" activites illegal when performed while driving: putting on makeup, talking to passengers, turning around to yell at ones' kids, solving a crossword puzzle, driving after having had poor-quality or inadequate sleep, driving while having to taking a piss, driving outside of the envelope of peak physical and mental human performance conditions, and so on. That these activities are legal while driving represents a gaping hole in the philosophy of writing and enforcing laws based on risks.
Another example, taking risk-based vehicular "crime" close to its logical conclusion: Clearly, it would be safest for there to be only one car on the road at a time, or to enforce a half-mile vehicle-separation distance. This would eliminate nearly all multi-vehicle collisions; by driving near, or (even worse) towards me, you put my life at risk! This is unreasonable, and impossible to enforce in a consistent or productive manner. What is reasonable, is to make it a crime to cause damage to people or property by way of negligence — but, we already have that. The rest — these "risk-crimes" — are all instances of moral panics, cash-grabs, power-grabs, and authoritarianism run amok — "for our own good." No, thanks. If someone actually hurts someone else, that's something else entirely, and worth having the laws we have against.
You wouldn't have even known this event had occurred, had he not come forward, because there were no victims. This guy hurt no one, and in my opinion deserves no penalty.
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you've ever driven an older car, at speed, you'll understand why the speed limits were set where they are. Many feel very 'floaty' at 100 MPH, their brakes suck, and they weight too much. Cars now, even cheap ones, are much more capable of being controleled at those speeds. This still leaves the human factor, but on a highway it's minimized. They really should raise some speed limits.
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It's mostly a geographic issue since we are much much more spread out and providing good public transit to rural areas isn't going to be easy.
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This. Not only that, this is a clear case where he SHOULD be, if not arrested, at least fined heavily. This is clear cut reckless driving; speed limits are posted to keep the public safe. Stunts like this should not be pulled at the potential expense of other drivers on the road. We're all beholden to the same laws, whether you're trying to break a record or not.
The danger of speed varies dependent on the road conditions and traffic. There are ways to break limits safely, and it sounds like he took precautions with having spotters for him on the route. The greatest danger was to himself should he lose control at that speed.
His spotters were 150 - 200 miles ahead of him. Even at 100mph, that's 90 - 120 minutes away. A lot can happen on the road in 90 minutes.
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ermm, no. He had a "lead" spotter to get him out of the NE corridor of traffic hell, where construction can easily add 4-6 hours to your trip.
Then he had a spotter in the car, and a co-driver that was also spotting/sleeping.
As to the parent,
There are definitely places out west, where with a proper car (and proper driver) a "safe and reasonable speed" could easily be well into the triple digits.
Is that true in my lifted Jeep Wrangler? Nope. Is that true in a nice sports sedan with active suspension? yep.
Was he breaking the law? Yeppers... Do I think he was pushing it? less than you'd think..
Do I know people that have done similar/worse things on motorcycles? Yeppers...
I've ridden on interstate trips and averaged 90-100 on the bike including quick fuel stops... and felt perfectly safe.
So while he was "breaking the law" I doubt he was as wreckless as Sally the realtor hurtling along in her Infinity SUV on her cell phone, explaining stuff to clients, and looking up things on her laptop....
I know I'm a lot more scared of the texting idiot than someone actively trying to drive...
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Insightful)
o while he was "breaking the law" I doubt he was as wreckless as Sally the realtor hurtling along in her Infinity SUV on her cell phone, explaining stuff to clients, and looking up things on her laptop....
Driving 100 to 150mp while anywhere within sight of Sally the oblivious realtor is itself reckless. Think about it, she's not paying attention, likely to change langes without looking, and even if she does look you are coming so fast that unless she's paying real attention (and she isn't: see premise) she won't realize it.
I've been up to 100mph and well beyond in my 911, and yeah, it handles like its on rails. But even so, the highway is not a track. There can be debris on the road, and the other drivers aren't speed matched at all.
The few times I've wound it out on a highway, I'm off the gas pedal again if I see another car on the horizon -- because you overtake them so fast, and you can't do a sudden lane change or effectively hit the brakes at that when Sally the realtor wanders out of her lane for any reason.
I've ridden on interstate trips and averaged 90-100 on the bike including quick fuel stops... and felt perfectly safe.
On a bike? That's even nuttier as you won't likely survive the wreck when Sally the realtor does what Sally the realtor is going to do.
To sum up 100-150mph on an empty highway ... sure ok. Been there done that, agree its not that bad. 100mph+ where the other cars are speed matched... sure ok, done that on the track a few times, and agree its pretty reasonable, where everyone's doing it, everyone's paying attention, etc.
But overtaking people who are semi-conscious doing half the speed, and barely paying attention... no... that's going to be reckless.
As for this guys stunt... its hard to say... if he was doing 60-70 when there were cars in sight, and 150mph when it was wide open than sure, he might haverage 100mph and its not as crazy as you' think. But if he was doing 100mph+ while overtaking people doing 55-60... he doesn't deserve to hold a license.
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But overtaking people who are semi-conscious doing half the speed, and barely paying attention... no... that's going to be reckless.
I find it much safer on a bike because you have more road to move into should Sally start wandering (ie a bike can fully fit on the shoulder, whereas a car might not. And going much faster means you share the same amount of space for less time, and you can zip around them before they even know you're there. The biggest risk on a bike at speed is the person pulling out of a driveway or side street without looking, on a freeway this shouldn't be a problem. I saw a doco a while back on hovercrafts, and the cap
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish I had mod points. Great post. The most dangerous person on the road is the idiot sitting in the left lane going 10 under the speed limit yakking away on their cell phone. Pretty much anyone that does routinely go over 100MPH on the freeway isn't the danger. They know what's going on around them. It's the oblivious idiot that just rolls over a lane or two without checking anything around them because they're too busy talking and/or texting.
Given that you know there are people going 10 under the speed limit in the left lane, isn't it disingenuous to claim that going 50mph faster than them is perfectly safe? Your stopping distance at 100mph is about 4 times greater than at 50mph. And since, as you say, drivers are not always paying the best attention to their driving, you're also at risk from the driver that does a quick check out his mirror before a lane change but doesn't see you because he's not expecting someone to be driving twice his speed.
I'm usually the guy going between 80 and 100 on the freeway. Guess how many accidents I've been involved in in the last 20 years? One. Chick deliberately cut me off in traffic and slammed on the brakes. Nothing I could do. She was talking on her phone and didn't look over her shoulder before cutting me off.
If she was on the phone and didn't look, why do you think she did it deliberately? Sounds more like it was unintentionally, perhaps even negligently. Maybe you were going much faster than prevailing speed.
So, the person going fast isn't the real danger. It's the morons who have no clue what they're doing or what's going on around them.
If you just moved here from a different country and didn't realize that those morons were out there, that might be a valid argument, but to claim that you can drive faster than everyone else is not a fair argument since you *do* know what behaviors to expect.
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since you *do* know what behaviors to expect.
Sounds like blaming the victim, as in "You knew there was a chance something bad would happen if you walked alone at night, therefore you deserved it."
The driver going twice the speed limit on a public street is not the "victim" in an accident.
If you want to use bad analogies, how about "You saw that sign that said 'No tresspassing, minefield ahead' yet you ignored the sign and proceeded anyway - you knew the danger, thought you could avoid the mines, but you didn't. Therefore you deserved it".
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Good luck proving whether it was him or his co-driver actually behind the wheel at any given time.
"Co-driver" is another word for "co-conspirator".
In a normal driving situation, obviously only the person in the driver's seat is considered at fault for traffic infractions. But in this particular case, these two people conspired to perform an illegal cross-country road race. Each of them are guilty of all the infractions. The conspiracy was openly admitted in their public statements.
Re:When will he be arrested? (Score:5, Funny)
"We don't know when, we don't know where, but we know you did it!" doesn't hold up very well in court.
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Very Illegal (Score:4, Insightful)
Why isn't this guy in jail?
So, in court .. (Score:2)
Re:So, in court .. (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah, thanks (Score:2)
My grandfather was a leadfoot, and crossed from NC to AZ a couple times a year under 48 hours. My dad was to follow him in a second vehicle once, and ended up slowing down and going his own pace, when he saw just how irresponsibly granddad was rushing things just for the sake of rushing. Grandpa never killed anyone but I'm sure it's been very close a couple of times.
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We're Mountain STANDARD. Daylight Savings is mostly for the birds. Half of the year, we're (functionally) on Pacific time.
Irresponsible jerk. (Score:5, Insightful)
Driving like a fool puts everyone on the road near him in danger. He should be sitting in jail, and lose his license.
Re:Irresponsible jerk. (Score:5, Interesting)
If he was driving 100MPH in a 75MPH zones, then he was only 33% above the speed limit. He also picked a vehicle designed for high-speed, Autobahn driving, meant to handle at those speeds, and I expect that his route intentionally avoided metro areas as much as possible to avoid both extra law enforcement and extra traffic. I can attest to my part of the country, it would not be that hard to go 150MPH in some areas without particularly endangering anyone but one's self, as there are long stretches of straight road with little to no usage. I wouldn't recommend it from a personal safety standpoint, but if one were to wreck in those areas it'd probably be a one-car accident.
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The car reeked of gas, that meant it had a leek.
I'm not sure how his choice of lunch is relevant here.
Re: "Driving like a fool" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: "Driving like a fool" (Score:5, Funny)
I presume that you also consider 5 out of 6 people who play Russian roulette to be "geniuses" as well.
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Driving 150 MPH in a 75 MPH zone in not a goddamned "gray area", Einstein.
Re:Yes you can control for that (Score:4, Informative)
I said *in front of* the 18 wheeler. You can't see around a big truck. This idiot also averaged 100 mph. that means that he had to move far faster than that for a large fraction of the time.
The highways are filled with trucks, even in the boondocks and at odd hours. That means he had to pass countless trucks while going at speeds like 130 mph, not 100.
For Christ sake, I can't believe the replies I'm getting from people who try to justify this idiotic behavior. The amount of ignorance and stupidity out there is just mind boggling.
Rail? (Score:2)
It seems like if you can do this with a car, where there are traffic laws and speed limits, there's no good reason why a NY-LA bullet train wouldn't work.
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Too bad there wasn't a legal route. (Score:5, Interesting)
In the Land of the Free and the Home of the brave, They needed to add a lot of cowardly countermeasures to make sure the were not caught and imprisoned, for what was in essence a joy ride.
If there was a way to go, I am going to do this stunt, I am expected to be at these locations between these times, and make sure the police give us enough room and clear out traffic. Sure it may require a little extra money say an traditional $10k to pay for the expense of blocking off the roads for the time.
But Risk taking should be rewarded, not punished, especially if you are willing to work with the system.
Re:Too bad there wasn't a legal route. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Too bad there wasn't a legal route. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure Red Bull would be eager to sponsor such a thing.
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Well they were going so fast, they wouldn't need to do it for long. That is $344 an hour.
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That wouldn't even cover the donuts.
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there was a bit of a mixup (Score:5, Funny)
He was really just trying to get some groceries but he used Apple Maps.
As a Georgia Tech Alumnus (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy ought to be ashamed of himself. IMHO he does not represent the character, integrity, or mission of Georgia Tech, it's students, alumni, faculty, staff, or administration.
There are right ways and wrong ways to do things, and this most certainly was the wrong way.
Is this really something we want to celebrate? (Score:3, Insightful)
Look, we all know everyone speeds. 5-10 MPH over the speed limit is socially acceptable and tacitly condoned (it's rare to get pulled over by the cops for that, unless they want to bust you for some unrelated reason). But this is entirely different – it seems to be a clear case of reckless driving. On most interstates, you can do 75 MPH no problem, and on the better ones, 85 MPH is reasonable during the daytime if there is no inclement weather. There are a few interstates where you can safely do 90-100 MPH, but these are not all that common, and even then, extreme caution is required. I don't see any possible way that someone could safely average nearly 100 MPH on a cross-country road trip. Safety comes by going with the flow of traffic, and this driver must have been blowing past the majority of other cars during most of his trip. It's amazing that he made it there in one piece.
Re:Is this really something we want to celebrate? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know where YOU live, but I'm in Kansas and you can do 100+ easily out here, even on the state highways because roads are so straight. I ride my motorcycle out in the country and the only real limitation is the mental fatigue of high speeds. I can only maintain them for a while before slowing down to make the ride more relaxing.
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There's no relationship to how fast you go vs. safety. The Germans prove it every day. [wikipedia.org]
As a comparison from the link above, for 2010 we averaged 6.87 fatalities for all roads per billion km (Bkm) of travel in the US, Germany 5.18. That's 24.6% less.
for highways, US: 3.62 fatalities/Bkm, Germany: 1.98 or 45.3% less.
On Urban areas the Germans do limit the speed limits (down to 75MPH in some areas) but the biggest problems in the US in prohibiting us to go faster are:
1) Our Roads aren't up to their standards
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There is a very well established relationship between speed and safety.
If you are doing 30mph down a suburban street and something jumps out in front of you, or some moron brakes for no apparent reason, you have way more time to react than if you are doing 100mph. At 30mph someone might get hurt. At 100mph someone is going to die.
Lots of people get hit and killed on City Streets where the speed limit is substantially restricted. [journalinquirer.com]
Speed doesn't kill, dumb drivers who are a) Drunk, Distracted (Texting, blah blahing on Cell phone) or are driving a car that's unsafe for multiple reasons kill people. So no, If there was a correlation to speed killing I think we'd see a lot more commercial airline crashes.
I think we'd both agree that doing 100mph down a suburban street is just me playing reductio ad absurdum, but it's easy to prove that the slower everyone goes the safer we all are.
Nobody is advocating going down residential streets and high speed. Even the Germans have speed limits but they enforce their laws an
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Those roads are built for that and they have very comprehensive vehicle inspections. His modified car would likely not have passed. I do not believe they allow adding fuel tanks like this. They also ban kit cars.
Saw this yesterday; was shocked by the detail (Score:4, Interesting)
OK, this guy plotted and planned in excrutiating detail for 18 months, works in the automobile industry, yet seems utterly fearless about the legal ramifications about admitting average speeds in excess of all posted limits in the country? The article I saw had a damning amount detail, including what sound like many admissions that he knows what he's doing is illegal (e.g. the comment about the vented trunk fumes while stopped by a cop).
Interesting data point (Score:5, Interesting)
To get an idea how much faster you could get around if the US had proper no speed limit highways like the German Autobahn.
(That said I don't condone reckless driving on roads that aren't built for that speed.)
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American drivers are not good for that speed either. Go ask a german about their drivers education vs ours. Ask them about their testing.
If you take your road test in an automatic you get a restricted license. Can you imagine how americans would react to that?
One missing detail (Score:5, Interesting)
Bust the jerk (Score:3, Insightful)
Moving at those kinds of speeds, people don't have time to accurately judge merging time, lane changes, etc. You can be 1/4 mile away and be on someone traveling the speed limit before they've even finished changing lanes. Record or not "top-gun" dick moves belong on the race track, not public highways.
Speed doesn't kill (Score:4, Funny)
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Falling into a paper mill will do that.
seriously, fuck this guy (Score:3)
This is not a fucking game. If you want to break speed records, use a track where you'll only risk the lives of those who knowingly expose themselves to this level of danger, rather than innocent people who are just trying to go about their lives. Fuck every last fucking one of these coast to coast 'racers'.
Speed limits.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Speed limits on interstates are set to road conditions and what is safe for the average, or below average, driver driving an average car based on a formula from 20 or more years ago and includes a formula to reduce gas consumption. While driver skills haven't changed all that much, cars have become much safer due to technology. In addition, you can drive safely at higher speeds in a car with race car engineering due to the added down-force, braking, less weight, etc. There is also a big difference between driving fast and driving dangerously, though most people equate one with the other.
I'm willing to bet that the first image that most have in their mind when they read this is the guy weaving in and out of heavy traffic at high rates of speed and cutting everyone off. However, there is no way that he could achieve this speed with any amount of traffic on the road.
The article says that they left NY at 9:55pm on a Saturday night. My guess is that the majority of their driving in urban areas (i.e. NY, etc.) was late at night and into the early morning hours, a time when the Interstates are largely empty. He spent Sunday morning crossing Missouri, Oklahoma, New Mexico etc. Net exactly major transportation hubs. He had a co-driver to switch off when they got tired and he had a pilot car running in front of him keeping eyes on the road conditions, traffic, etc.
I'm not saying that I agree with what he did. It was illegal and relatively unsafe. But, in my opinion, it wasn't quite as reckless as people make it out to be. For my money, I prefer people who know how to drive and drive fast to people who drive drunk, while texting, while taking on the phone without a hands-free device, tailgate, switch lanes without looking or using a signal light, weave in and out of traffic, etc....
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"What are you, some kind of nut? Who do you think you are?"
Dun, dun, dunnnnn -- Captain Chaos!
Re:Why bother with a radar / laser jammer? (Score:4, Interesting)
Just feed the receiver with the right frequency to tell it how fast you want it to read. Imagine the look on the cop's face when you scream by at 100+ and the gun reads "55".
They don't need the radar gun reading to ticket you for speeding - if you ever go to court, you'll find that all police claim to be "trained in visual speed observation", and will back up the radar evidence with their professional judgement of how fast you were going. And the judge will accept their estimate because they have the training to show that they can make accurate estimates.
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Because the jammers were for infrared. That band isn't regulated.
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Re:Americans CAN NOT DRIVE!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you drive dangerously, or just speed? Autobahnpolizei are known to ignore the guy going fast but safe in favor of catching the guys passing on the right, tailgating, weaving through traffic, and camping out in the middle lane.
In the US we ticket for speed, since it's the easiest to prove and carries the highest fines. The cops don't care so much about actual unsafe driving. Yes, it's screwed up.